The United Nations and legal workers in East Timor have accused the
international community, including Australia, of failing to offer continuing
support to the country's reconstruction. More than six months after
independence, there is broad agreement that the justice system is in crisis.
Some observers are linking riots in Dili earlier this month to rising
frustration, in a community still waiting for the promised peace that was to
have come with hard-won independence.

SCHEINER: We would say that the international commmunity has not met its
responsibility, both in terms of providing the support and expertise and
administrative work to make the judicial system function better. Hopefully the
result of disturbances last week, is that the international donor community, and
I include of course Australia, needs to look at the fact they need to continue
to support East Timor.

DE MASI: Charles Scheiner, from the East Timor Institute for Reconstruction,
Monitoring and Analysis, La'o Hamutuk, is not alone in linking the Dili riots
earlier this month with the slow pace of reconstruction.

For some in East Timor, the wheels of justice are turning very slowly.

There are 47 cases pending appeal after trial in the lower court.

But there isn't a Court of Appeal because the judges haven't been appointed.

Some of those convicted have reportedly been waiting in jail for more than
two years, in violation of international human rights standards.

Patrick Burgess is the head of the Human Rights Unit at the United Nations
Mission in Support fo East Timor, in Dili.

BURGESS: Certainly I think it's completely unacceptable for an Apellate Court
not to be staffed and it's my understanding that administrative problems have
failed to produce people who the government feels acceptable to be appointed.
And people who have been convicted are unable to appeal, adn that includes
crimes against humanity trials that have already been completed. I don't have
any explanation other than that the people have been put forward at this stage
have been found to be unacceptable by the government.

DE MASI: Most East Timorese are unable to afford legal representation, and
government-run legal aid is still in its early stages of development.

There's also a massive shortage of experienced legal professionals and no
lawyers with court experience.

BURGESS: It is hard to find the right people to help. In East Timor all the
young judges, lawyers, prosecutors, public defenders were educated in Indonesia.
They speak Indonesian. All the international assistance sought, most were people
who couldn't communicate with their East Timorese counterparts. We had to use
interpreters, the law is so technical, the interpretation is not accurate. The
East Timorese government keen to impose the decision that's been made here to
use Portuguese as national language, but the lawyers don't speak Portuguese.

DE MASI: Nelson Belo, from East Timor's Judicial System Monitoring Program
says local people who come into contact with the court system can often not even
make themselves understood.

BELO: East Timorese speak in Tetum, and some ordinary people who've committed
crimes or witnesses, they come from the countryside, they cannot speak Tetum,
they speak their local language, and there are no interpreters. So it's really
hard for the court to function in a proper way.

DE MASI: Add to this a pastiche of international, East Timorese and
Indonesian law, and UN regulations, and Nelson Belo says it's clear why the
entire system is failing.

Patrick Burgess, from the UN's Human Rights Unit says these shortfalls are
not the only factors in undermining trust in the legal system.

There's also a lack of progress in prosecuting crimes against humanity from
the post-election violcence in 1999.

BURGESS: The East Timorese people can see very clearly the Indonesian
military who they feel were responsible for that violence, in fact they know
them personally. They see the trials in Jakarta having failed to produce a
single successful prosecution of military personnell, the international
community backing away from pushing for stronger answers from the Jakarta
tribunals, and they're very very disappointed about that.

DE MASI: Closer to home, confidence was further damaged when the East Timor
government refused to enforce a court ruling, casting doubt on the separation of
powers.

The decision was untimately upheld, but not before a lawyers strike and a
dangerous precedent of goverment interference in the judicial system.

Maria Natersia Gusmao Pereira is a judge on the Serious Crimes Special Panel
of the Dili District Court, that hears cases from the post-independence ballot
violence.

She says the government and the community must take ownership of the judicial
system and some responsibility for its success.

GUSMAO PEREIRA: I believe that my people, my community, they trust us. They
trust us to be independent, impartial in our work. If everybody in this
government and in this country has the good will to support the courts, I think
there'll be no crisis in the future.

DE MASI: Meanwhile, the United Nations' Patrick Burgess says that future has
been made more tenuous by the failure of the international community to follow
through on its commitment to help East Timor rebuild.

He says assistance is needed not just in the short term, but for as long as
it takes.

BURGESS: Recruiting people, finding the right people, the right buildings,
there were no law books, there were no experienced personnel, no vehicles, there
wasn't a computer. The judges used to have meetings sitting on the floor,
scribbling on pieces of paper. There's a long, long way to go but the entire
future of the country rests, in my opinion, on whether the justice system is
effective and functioning.

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